


Who is Earth For?

by HeadphonesOn



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Introspection, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Sad Ending, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-11 22:50:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18433739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeadphonesOn/pseuds/HeadphonesOn
Summary: Hera's thoughts on Officer Eiffel have changed a lot over the time she's known him.Start-to-end of Wolf 359 Eiffera ramble, pretty much.





	Who is Earth For?

**Author's Note:**

> I am an Eiffel-y girl attempting to write Hera, let's see how this goes.

When Hera first met Officer Eiffel, she thought he was annoying, rude, painfully simple. She didn't want to imagine him living in her station, in _her_ , for the entire mission. She secretly hoped that he'd get himself killed early on.

He was, on the surface, a squishy bag of biology- easily killed. A human could die if they felt the cold fabric of space for just a minute, choke on the lack of oxygen, freeze. And even if they stayed safe and contained in their little space box, so much could go wrong. A wire could be cut and electrocute them. They could crash into a particularly sharp corner and bleed out through a head wound. They could catch a disease from the lab and their body would crumble and die. One could turn on another. And Officer Eiffel, he was especially stupid, there were a million dumb little mistakes he could make. A million ways to be rid of him. 

Hera remembered watching him light a cigarette, seeing the spark catch and _woosh_ \- a flicker became a flash of oranges and reds streaming from the nearest synthetic surface. The smoke would kill him faster, she thought, when Officer Eiffel started shouting incessantly, waving his arms like it would do something. The smoke was thick and black and full of chemical components and it would suffocate Officer Eiffel's lungs. If it weren't for her programmed inability to harm her crew, she may have let it burn and choke him dead. 

That thought makes her sick now. 

As time went on, Officer Eiffel seemed less terrible. Yes, he was still a liability, still arguably useless, but he had his moments. He liked to talk to her, treat her like a friend. Hera had never had a friend before. Humans had always used her but not known her. Officer Eiffel went out of his way to know her. Sure, he was obnoxious, but he asked her what colors she liked. He asked what she thought of Commander Minkowski's newest regulations, what parts of the station were her favorites, how she felt that day. He always wanted to talk to her like a person and not the mechanical thing controlling his oxygen flow. 

He told her stories about Earth, which sometimes bothered her. Earth was for Officer Eiffel, not for her, and that angered her. Space was beautiful, but it as also vast and empty and she wished she had a home to go back to. Eiffel meant well. Hera knew that. But it still bothered her. 

Then Hilbert turned on Christmas, Officer Eiffel's birthday, and she was attacked and torn open. When she woke up again, brought back by the man who hurt her in the first place, she was furious and afraid. She wanted Eiffel to leave her alone, yet she never wanted him to leave. How was that possible? Emotions were confusing now. They contradicted each other and there was no easy answer. _Human_ , part of her said. She was far too similar to a human.

And then Lovelace came into the picture and everyone was in even more danger. The possibility of her being left floating alone in space became very real. At first, she fell back on her old ideas, her old comforts- that she was above it all and that space was her home. Earth was for Officer Eiffel, not her. But something inside her was changing- she started wanting to _make_ Earth her home. She listened close to Eiffel's stories, taking his media-overloaded stories and adding her own knowledge to them, the feelings and colors and scale that humans could not comprehend and build her idea of Earth. 

She found herself imagining the world with Officer Eiffel there with her. Commander Minkowski too, she would show up, but not to the same extent. Eiffel was everywhere. He was in the cities, in the desert, in the ocean. Every bit of Earth she imagined had Eiffel exploring and waving to her, smiling that tilted smile he only gave when truly happy. He was integral. Hera was confused with that. Eiffel was barely competent, often a liability- but she no longer thought that, not really. Officer- no, just Eiffel- Eiffel was so much more, Hera could see that now. 

Hearing Eiffel describe some fictional couple (“Zoe and Wash is the quintessential space romance, full stop!”), Hera started to wonder about love. 

When Eiffel started coughing, decima flaring up and leaving him fading on Hilbert's operating table, she was terrified. A year ago, she would have been secretly excited at the prospect of the man dying and the constant talking ceasing. How things change. 

Did she love Eiffel? 

It didn't matter. Not long later, his shuttle was sent spiraling into space. He was gone. 

Everything fell apart after that. The station itself crumbled and malfunctioned, and she couldn't fix it. The crew dissolved into bitterness and then mindless continuation. She stopped trying to imagine Earth. She didn't want to think about Eiffel and his smile. And they'd never make it to Earth, anyway. 

When Eiffel came back, even skeletal and weak and in the clutches of a group of Goddard sadists, she had never felt more joy, more relief, more _love_. That’s what it was, officially. She categorized it as that in her mind, filed it in its own special place she assumed was what would be poetically called her heart. She saw Commander Minkowski hug him, pull the man in for an embrace that fully enveloped his now withered frame, and she wished her infinite number of senses came with touch. 

And then Maxwell entered the picture. If her feelings for Eiffel had been love, Maxwell was desperate passion- some twisted combination of romantic and awe and manipulation. Eiffel never left her database heart, but was forgotten briefly when she met a woman who could reach into her and know how to stop the pain. Maxwell was fiery yet cold in a way Hera related to. Maxwell was her friend. 

Officer Eiffel tried to get in her way, which made Hera angry. He was starting to seem painfully simple again, and she remembered why she disliked humans. She found herself thinking about his fragility more, especially with the toll cryofreeze took on his body still evident. His skin was thin, his bones brittle. Blood too easy to spill from wounds too easy to make. Wondering how much she’d care when that inevitably happened. As Maxwell got closer to her, Officer Eiffel got farther. 

Looking back...well, Hera never wants to look back. 

Because she was so absorbed by Maxwell’s icy flame that she let herself forget who Maxwell worked for. Maxwell turned on her and dug into her brain with no more care than Hilbert had. And Hera’s systems catalogued the stream of Maxwell’s blood as it floated from the bullet hole and into the air, the hematocrit and leukocytes and _life_. 

Officer Eiffel- when had she started thinking of him as that again?- was alive, though. And the regret sunk into her database heart slowly. There was so much going on around her- alien possession and Lovelace coming back to life and much more -so Officer Eiffel was just one of the millions of things she had to focus on. Eventually, though, she began to find the time to imagine Earth again. Eiffel was still there. 

One night she remembers well, a few nights before Eiffel met the alien he called Bob. Eiffel was at the observation deck, spinning in a chair with his head tipped back, eyes closed. He looked painfully bored, so Hera began asking him questions. Random things, time passers. And somehow, in that night, she’d gotten caught up in the comfort and- 

“Who do you love?” 

That changed the tone instantly- everything went still and the noise that had been background now felt deafening. Eiffel’s eyes were wide and he sat himself up straighter in the chair. It took him a few moments before he spoke. 

“That’s a big question, Hera.” 

She knew. She’d lost control for just a moment, hoping for one particular answer. She quickly made up an excuse and changed the subject until the air felt normal again. 

That night was something she clung to when the Sol arrived and with it, Pryce and Cutter. When they reached into her mind, Eiffel’s mind, all of their minds and violated them. Bent to the will of her creator, she fought as hard as she could to stay herself while having to watch Lovelace taken and her crew broken. Eiffel was not Eiffel; it was disgusting. His voice was mindless contentment- not the way it used to get sometimes, the lazy happiness at simple pleasures. He now sounded like he existed only for Pryce and Cutter with no personality to speak of. His movements were too stiff. Hera couldn’t _not_ watch, her eyes were everywhere and unable to close. It was sickening. 

Luckily, she didn’t have to watch for long. She saw him come back, almost didn’t believe it at first, but he came back and for the millionth time, she felt the relief of Eiffel being alive. It was short-lived, of course. Pryce and Cutter were still in control. The final battle had begun. 

Eiffel almost managed to avoid it- Minkowski tried to make sure of that. Hera watched the shuttle detach and shoot off into the black and felt conflicted. In the more logical part of her, she knew he needed to be safe, get back to Earth. He could fight Goddard from a safer distance, and more importantly, he could get some rest after years of being injured, betrayed, sick, overworked, launched through space. But her selfish dataheart hated that he was leaving without her. The Earth she’d imagined would still have Eiffel- but it would lack her. Maybe that’s how it was meant to be. 

Eiffel came back, with quite the entrance, and she was terrified for him and excited as could be. Of course, the terror won out, in the end. 

The final fight should not have taken place inside Eiffel’s mind. He was, on the surface, a squishy bag of biology- and on the inside, an unexpected will of steel surrounded by fragile memories. But when Hera saw Miranda Pryce, her eyes fake but disdain evident, she knew it had to end there. Hera remembered her body, a human form so unlike Price, curves where Price had angles, hands that looked like they could hold instead of twist and break. She remembered Eiffel’s eyes when he saw her. She remembered Pryce trying to put her down, but that time in her life was over. _I can do this. I am good enough. I am stronger than you have ever been._ Even as Eiffel’s memories crashed around her, she recited this to herself, even as things went south, she recited. Time ran short and the crashing got louder and she became afraid and she still recited- 

Eiffel’s sacrifice gave her what she needed and ended Goddard's control. 

Pryce was a blank slate, the body of Hera's worst enemy with a completely different person inside. Everything felt so small as Hera watched Eiffel, waiting for the same to happen to him. Around her, she could see where Jacobi ran through the station covered in fresh burn scars, where the engines whirred like nothing was wrong, and outside where space went on for infinity and colors exploded invisibly- but she let it fade away to focus on where Minkowski and Lovelace ran in to find Eiffel. He looked accepting of what was about to happen, that tilted smile on his face. He was not ready to go, Hera knew that, but it was worth it to him for what he's accomplished. Hera wanted to scream- she wanted the human body back so she could hit things, break things, cling to Eiffel in his last moments as himself. But she could only listen as he said goodbye, first to Minkowski, then Lovelace, then- 

“Hera, I-”

 _I love you?_

When Hera last saw Eiffel, she was left with an unanswerable question and something that must've been heartbreak.

**Author's Note:**

> I was truly wracking my brain trying to remember the exact events of the finale, I hope I didn't get anything wrong. Feel free to cry about Eiffel and Hera with me!


End file.
